1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a system and method for providing the augmentation of computerized documents providing text and numbers, drawings, photographs, or other media, with annotations from individuals or groups; the collection and display of these annotations is associated with a particular computerized document or multiple computerized documents, and the retention of these annotations separate from, but associated with the particular computerized document; and a user interface providing a clear, but non-distracting, display presence of the annotations associated with a computerized document, and providing a simple annotation retrieval action.
In this application a computerized document is defined as the collection of information that is displayed on a computer screen with a user interface, called a browser, that allows the user to display and interact with text, images, and other information or media typically located on a web page at a website on the World Wide Web or a local area network. Reference to a computerized document in this application may include use of the abbreviated term “document” or the term “reference document.” Also, in this application, an annotation may be one or more referenced Web-accessible document formats or some subpart thereof that are related by a user to the computerized document.
2. Description of Related Art
Systems for the collection, storage, and display of annotations are known in the art. U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2003/0018632 (Bays et al.) describes a computer program to collect, store, and search annotations on database files based on categories of the annotation and the associated file. U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2002/0054059 (Schneiderman) describes a method and system to collect and store annotations used to search an electronic image database. U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2005/0065958 (Dettinger et al.) describes a method of associating an annotation with a database entity so as to exchange information using the annotation. U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2005/0125447 (Cragun et al.) describes a method of relating an annotation with a variety of database entities. U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2005/0132281 (Pan et al.) describes a method of storing annotations in a shared directory and relating them to particular documents in a database. All of these documents provide for the annotation of database-related files. An annotation system that provides for the annotation of a computerized document is needed.